The Sinulog Festival is a Philippine festival which honors the Sto. Niño. It takes place in Cebu in January over a 9-day period, coming to a climax on the 3rd Sunday of January. The main highlights of the festival include a religious procession which takes place on the last Saturday, a high Mass wherein the traditional Sinulog dance is performed and a large street celebration on Sunday to culminate the fiesta.
The word sinulog comes from a Cebuano word meaning, “like the movement of water currents.” The name is a reference to the forward-backward steps in the Sinulog dance. The dancers basically take two steps forward and one step backward to the beat of a drum. The dance is traditionally performed mostly by elderly women.
Before the coming of the Spaniards, the Sinulog was already being danced by the early Filipinos of Cebu in honor of their anitos. When Ferdinand Magellan came to Cebu in 1521, Rajah Humabon, his wife Amihan, and some 800 natives chose to be baptized as Catholics. Magellan gave the Sto. Niño to Rajah Humabon’s wife, baptized as Juana, as a baptismal gift. This event not only introduced the Sto. Niño to the people of Cebu but was the foundation for its significance to the early Cebuanos:. A representation of Queen Juana, holding the Sto. Niño and blessing her subjects to ward away sickness and evil spirits, became an important part of the Sinulog dance. When Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and his men arrived in Cebu in 1565 and razed the village ruled by Rajah Tupas, a soldier named Juan Camus discovered a box with the image of the Sto. Niño surrounded by flowers, amidst some native anito figures. This signifies to historians that the transition from dancing the Sinulog to worship the anitos to dancing it in homage to the Sto. Niño occurred within the 44 years between the arrival of Magellan and Legazpi.
Devotion to the Sto. Niño has survived and grown in Philippine culture over the centuries, especially in the Visayas region. Pilgrims from all over the Philippines as well as Cebu go to the Basilica every year to participate in the procession and festival.
A fluvial procession is usually held the day before the grand celebration. This is part of the tradition of bringing the Sto. Niño to pay a visit to his parents in different parishes in Cebu. The icon is brought by a procession of devotees from the Basilica in Cebu City to St. Joseph Parish in Mandaue City to visit his foster father two days before the main fiesta. He remains there overnight. Many people from Mandaue and the surrounding communities come to the church for a vigil during this period. The next day, early in the morning, the Child Jesus is brought to his mother in one of the islands of Lapu-Lapu close by in a reenactment of the coming of the Spaniards. The image is placed in a glass case bedecked with flowers and brought to the island by a watercraft representing a galleon.The solemn procession of motorboats is heralded by the fanfare of trumpets, the beating of drums, fireworks, ship’s horns, sirens, and the cries of devotees.
The procession, organized by the Augustinians, begins in the church the afternoon when the image is restored to the Basilica following the fluvial procession. There are millions of pilgrims and devotees of the Sto. Niño who take part in the procession, carrying lighted candles and holy rosaries. The candle vendors at the Basilica perform the traditional Sinulog dance, accompanied by native songs, as they light candles for their customers.
Currently, the festival celebrated in Cebu City consists of colorful street pageantry, with participants costumed in vibrant outfits with made of silk and trimmed with feathers, dancing in the streets to the beat of drums and gongs. In the contest there are three categories: Sinulog-based, Free Interpretation, and recently, Latin.
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